Spring Festival couplet generator. 40+ classic 春联 (couplets) filtered by theme (wealth, longevity, family, harmony, study, business). Print-ready PDF. For Lunar NY, new home, shop opening.
Spring Festival Couplet Generator (春联生成器)
How to use
Pick a theme
7 themes: wealth, longevity, family, harmony, study, business, general.
Generate or random
Hit "Generate" for a couplet matching the theme, or "Random" to pull from all 40+ couplets.
View the trio
Horizontal banner (top), upper line (right), lower line (left) — traditional reading order.
Print as PDF
Hit "Print" to save as PDF in your browser. Print on red paper and paste on your door for Lunar NY.
Spring Festival Couplets: The Most Ceremonial Lunar NY Tradition
Spring Festival couplets (春联, chūn lián) are among the most ceremonial Lunar New Year traditions in Chinese culture, dating to the Five Dynasties period (~950 CE). Each set has three pieces: a horizontal banner (top), an upper line (pasted on the right, read top-to-bottom), and a lower line (pasted on the left, read top-to-bottom).
Structural rules
Authentic couplets must satisfy 4 rules: (1) Equal character count (usually 7); (2) Parallel parts of speech (noun-noun, verb-verb); (3) Tonal pairing (upper line ends in oblique tone, lower in level tone); (4) Thematic resonance (unified concept). All couplets in this tool follow these rules.
Reading order
Facing the door: upper line on the right (because ancient Chinese reads right to left); lower line on the left; horizontal banner centered above. Read clockwise starting from the upper right. This is traditional protocol — modern households sometimes don\'t bother, but shops, temples, and traditional families still strictly follow it.
Couplet culture in SG/MY/HK/TW
Chinese communities in Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Indonesia, and the Philippines all paste couplets in volume for Lunar NY. Malaysia\'s KL and Penang Spring Festival markets sell hand-painted couplets (RM5-50 per pair). Singapore Chinatown, Taiwan\'s Dihua Street, and HK\'s Mong Kok all host hand-calligraphy couplet artisans.
The 40+ couplets in this tool are traditional public-domain works passed down through generations with no individual authorship.
10 Facts about Spring Couplets
The earliest recorded spring couplet: written by Meng Chang, last Emperor of Later Shu (919-965). The first documented couplet in Chinese history.
Couplets evolved from "peach charms" — Han dynasty households hung peach-wood boards on doors to ward off evil. From the Five Dynasties onward, blessings were written on them, evolving into modern couplets.
The upper line ends in oblique tone (仄声), the lower in level tone (平声) — a tradition from the Book of Songs. Determines which line goes right or left.
Red couplets: Lunar NY couplets must be red, symbolising festivity and evil-warding. Weddings use pink/peach; mourning uses white.
The upside-down 福 character is a uniquely Chinese New Year custom. "Fortune 倒 (upside-down)" sounds like "Fortune 到 (arrives)" — a homophonic pun.
Couplet calligraphy: formal couplets are brush-written. Gold ink (金墨), Kaishu (regular script), and Xingshu (running script) are most common. Hong Kong, Taiwan, SG/MY calligraphers are busiest before Lunar NY.
Couplet character counts: usually 7 per line, but 5, 8, 11 also common. Temples and palaces use longer couplets (Confucius Temple, Yue Fei Temple) up to 30+ characters.
Singapore couplets: Since the 1990s, the Singapore Calligraphy Association has organised an annual "free couplet writing" event — providing hand-written couplets to the community to preserve the tradition.
Shop couplets are longer (11-13 chars) to express "great wealth, great prosperity". SG/MY heritage businesses (chicken rice shops, bak kut teh stalls) replace couplets every Lunar NY.
Pairs with RT-CHN-045 (Lunar Festival Calendar), RT-CHN-050 (Color Symbolism), and RT-CHN-053 (Folk Symbols) — the complete Lunar NY culture toolkit.
Frequently Asked Questions
Upper line on the right when facing the door. Ancient Chinese reads right to left, so the upper line (which is read first) goes right. Reversing them is considered inauspicious in traditional thinking.
Traditionally kept until the next Lunar NY (one year). But due to weather, most households actually remove them around Qingming (early April). SG/MY/HK/TW all follow this practice.
Home: main door, secondary doors, room doors. Shops: entrance, counter, storage. Temples: main door, hall doors. Newlywed homes: a special 囍 (double happiness) couplet version.
No, this is a digital display. For actual hand-written couplets: (1) find a calligrapher before Lunar NY in any Chinatown; (2) attend a calligraphy class yourself; (3) custom-order from Taobao. This tool helps you preview themes.
Yes, but follow 4 rules: equal char count (7 is most common), parallel parts of speech, tonal pairing, unified theme. Mainland Chinese middle school 语文 teaches couplet composition — a traditional cultural exam topic.
Formally yes. The banner is typically 4 characters summarising the couplet's theme. SG/MY/HK/TW household couplets often skip the banner. But shops, temples, and traditional households use the full set.
The tool has print-specific CSS: ads, menus, etc. hidden when printing; only the couplet trio shown. Use your browser's native "Print → Save as PDF". Then color-print on red paper.
Spring couplets are strictly not for funerals. Funerals use "elegiac couplets" (挽联, white paper + black ink) — completely different format. Households in active mourning don't paste spring couplets that year.
Absolutely. Couplets are cultural sharing, not religious ritual. Many non-Chinese friends paste couplets during Lunar NY as cultural appreciation. SG/MY and North American multicultural communities often do this.
40+ classic selections covering 7 themes. Complete traditional couplets number 1,000+, but this tool covers the most common and representative core. Professional calligraphers continue creating new compositions.
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